Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

Republicans can’t even be trusted with their own money.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Second rate reporter says what?

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

An unpunished coup is a training exercise.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

Bark louder, little dog.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Every day Vance writes another chapter in the book called “Worst VP Pick Ever”.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

When they say they’re pro-life, they don’t mean yours.

The jury literally has a bell they can ring to force Trump to show up on command. Greatest thing ever!

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

This fight is for everything.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Tuesday Night Good News, Bad News, but Mostly Good News Open Thread

Tuesday Night Good News, Bad News, but Mostly Good News Open Thread

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This post is in: 

The good news I’m seeing seems to be mostly for the Dems, and the bad news is for the Republicans.

Works for me!

Swalwell refused to stop until he got to the end of the alphabetical list of nations that won’t let a convicted felon enter the country. I like the fight in the Dems these days. (It’s a Newsweek article so make of it what you will.)

Interesting, for sure.  True?  We’ll find out.  I say let them fight.

Josh Paul was part of our “election protection” thermometer in 2022.  Great to see all these folks we supported placing high importance on the rule of law.  Exactly why we supported them!

I bought 3 gorgeous pots of sunflowers today, and 15 bags of mulch.  Let’s just say that I’m more excited about the sunflowers than all the mulching ahead of me.  I prefer the look of brown mulch, but the bunnies don’t like cedar mulch, so that’s what I got for the new bed in front.  Pretty sure the sunflowers will look better planted than they do with bags of mulch stacked behind them!

It rained so hard tonight (but only for 10-15 minutes) that the gutter couldn’t keep up with the rain!  It was spilling out over the sides, even though I had just cleaned it out a couple of weeks ago.  Once the rain stopped, I checked, and the gutter really was clear – the rain was coming down too fast for the gutter to keep up.  Nice that I only have one gutter – on the other side of the house, the rain just runs off and waters the ferns I pictured in my post last night.

Monday Evening I Need More Time In the Day Open Thread

Oh, and you guys convinced me to change The Former President and Convicted Felon Is a Whiny Little Bitch TO The Former President and Convicted Felon Is a Whiny Toddler.  A clear victory for peer pressure.

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

118Comments

  1. 1.

    SpaceUnit

    Republicans thinking trump is the wrong candidate choice doesn’t mean they won’t vote for him.  It’s 2024.

     

    ETA:  I’m not being an Eeyore.  I think that ugly orange bastard is going to get his ass kicked.

  4. 4.

    sdhays

    @SpaceUnit: You’re right. But it doesn’t mean they will vote for him either. His support is softening when he needs his sometimes voters to be feeling more pumped about voting for him. It’s still early, but it’s not good for him.

  5. 5.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    In other “let them fight” news, I heard somewhere over the weekend that the College Republicans, or the Young Republicans, or the Republican Jugend or something had pissed off the RNC by saying something blasphemous like “maybe Trump shouldn’t be our candidate”. So now they are The Enemy.

    Sorry about the vagueness. I’ll try to find details.

  6. 6.

    SpaceUnit

    @sdhays:

    No, you’re right.  He will lose some support, and it won’t take more than a few percentage points to make a very big difference.

    Also, I think our MSM is deliberately avoiding talking about the trump exhaustion factor, because they need their goddamn horserace.  But I suspect a majority of American voters are getting pretty tired of this shitshow.

  9. 9.

    Ishiyama

    I noticed the news about the start of Hunter Biden’s trial. He’s employing the best possible defense, as far as I can tell.

  10. 10.

    eclare

    @smith:

    I don’t know if you saw my comment, but I watched the video of the soldiers returning to France for the D-Day anniversary.  It was very moving.

  11. 11.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    When you hear Republicans cry about “the weaponization of our justice system/law enforcement” in holding conservative lawbreakers accountable for their crimes, what they are really saying is that they are going to weaponize the FUCK out of the justice systems and law enforcement and blame the Democrats for doing it first. Our fucking worthless billionaire and investor-owned big media can’t waste the time on reporting that the Republicans are criminals who are intent on destroying our nation in service to one man with no boundaries. This is yet more bullying and screams for vengeance.

    Put him in charge again and our law enforcement and justice systems are done for, as is our nation.

  12. 12.

    BlueGuitarist

    Today, Pennsylvania state House of Representatives passed a bill to provide free menstrual hygiene products to public school students.
    Republicans objected on the grounds that this “leads to communism.”
    That’s a real quote from Stephanie Borowicz, PA-H-076 (Clinton and Union counties), not Borowitz Report; she’s like the local version of MT Greene.
    Several Rs in swing districts voted yes; a couple voted no.

  13. 13.

    jackmac

    I picked up a bargain mandevilla on Sunday that’s about to start blooming and plan to repot it on Wednesday. And I so liked the look of WaterGirl’s clematis that I’m going to try to find some at one of my nearby garden centers.  I’m a rank amateur at gardening, so if I don’t kill my flowers I count that as some kind of success.

  14. 14.

    smith

    @eclare: I thought it was moving, too. D-Day was 80 years ago, so those guys, at the youngest, are in their late nineties. This will most likely be the last major remembrance of that day to have anyone who survived it around to be a witness.

  16. 16.

    BlueGuitarist

    @Ishiyama:

    Hunter’s wife confronted a Trump lackey outside the courtroom, called him a “Nazi piece of shit” to his face.
    (It was Navarro aide Garrett Ziegler, who got Sidney Powell and Michael Flynn into the oval office for coup plotting.)

  17. 17.

    Sister Golden Bear

    Good news, the neurologist who was booked until Halloween had a cancellation, so I was able to do a consultation.

    She agrees with my pain specialist that degenerated cervical disc impingement is the root of my current mysterious shoulder problems — she the fourth (extremely qualified) specialist in a row to say “That’s really… interesting. I haven’t seen that before.”

    Bad news: Thst means the options are to continue PT, which has resulted in some improvements, but I’m still a long way from being able to fully move/control my arm again

    Or try a semi-experimental PFR injection into my neck to help me ease the impingement. Which is expensive and not covered by insurance

    PRP/PRF injections are new and have a good track record with knees, and a good but less extensive record with shoulder — I had one done theee months ago, and it seems to have helped significantly. Using it for cevical issues is really new and my doctor is one of folks pioneering this treatment. But it’s so new there’s not yet much research on how effective it is, although from it can tell the consensus is “promising but not yet proven.”

    Decisions decisions…

  18. 18.

    Jay

    @jackmac:

    Keep in mind, there are two different “types” of clematis. One needs a “hard prune” every year, the other, nope.

  20. 20.

    Jackie

    The billboards are awesome! I hope they pop up in every state that allows them! (They’re banned in WA state.)

    And Eric Swalwell gets a standing ovation from me!🥰 I watched that clip multiple times just to enjoy the GQP’s reaction 😂

  21. 21.

    BlueGuitarist

    @jackmac:

    Good luck with the garden & garden photos!
    I also very much like the look of WaterGirl’s clematis and ferns, and love sunflowers.

  25. 25.

    trnc

    @Ishiyama: ​
     

    I noticed the news about the start of Hunter Biden’s trial. He’s employing the best possible defense, as far as I can tell.

    He changed his party affiliation to republican?

  27. 27.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @SpaceUnit: I sure hope you’re right. I want him to lose those swing states by many percentage points. And lose the whole election. Bigly.
    I’m hoping even folks who say they’ll vote for him, actually don’t. That man has been pretty oppressive to anyone who speaks out against him. I hope all the jurors don’t have to end up in witness protection programs…

    btw, I think you made a welcome message to me a few weeks back when I started showing up here. Thanks. That was kind, and meant a lot. I think I got too tired to reply that night.

  29. 29.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: it uplifts me to see in print here, that young republicans are saying this :

    “maybe Trump shouldn’t be our candidate”

    gives me space to take a deep breath…

  30. 30.

    SFAW

    @eclare:

    Was that whiny, nasally WATB Jordan? I’m guessing yes, since he was the only one not deigning to wear a jacket/blazer/suitcoat.

  32. 32.

    Jay

    NEW YORK – Student editors at the Columbia Law Review say they were pressured by the journal’s board of directors to halt publication of an academic article written by a Palestinian human rights lawyer that accuses Israel of committing genocide in Gaza and upholding an apartheid regime.
    When the editors refused the request and published the piece Monday morning, the board — made up of faculty and alumni from Columbia University’s law school — shut down the law review’s website entirely. It remained offline Tuesday evening, a static homepage informing visitors the domain “is under maintenance.”

    The episode at one of the country’s oldest and most prestigious legal journals marks the latest flashpoint in an ongoing debate about academic speech that has deeply divided students, staff and college administrators since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

    https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/after-publishing-an-article-critical-of-israel-columbia-law-review-s-website-is-shut-down-by-board-1.6913893

  33. 33.

    Gloria DryGarden

    WG, great clematis. People who water their princess areas grow these in Colorado, but I’ve never seen one so big and glorious as yours.
    im laughing so hard about the you might be in a cult video. That list of countries is priceless. I had to listen a few times to catch them since he was being asked to stop…

    Argentina Chile Brazil Mexico, Tunisia Egypt (sorry about the eclipse buddy), Australia New Zealand Malaysia Ethiopia Tunisia Canada, Ukraine, UK, Ireland….

    giggling away.

    loved him saying he can’t get a security clearance. That alone ought to disqualify him from being in office ever.

  34. 34.

    SectionH

    WG: sunflowers, great! And the ferns* are wonderful.

    When I can bring myself to check-in, I’m often smiling about the all news from Dr Schade und Dr Freude recently. But

    *I don’t guess you want a ~4/5 ft tall Asparagus Fern I’ve kept going for ~13 years? I didn’t think so! If I were up for pirate gardening, I know a couple of places I’d consider planting it. I might imagine a Plant bleg  (LOL, but you can’t take a 7′ plant – yes that includes the soil) onna commercial flight. Not to worry that much.

  36. 36.

    SpaceUnit

    @Steve in the ATL:

    In a sufficiently free and capitalist society we would all be going about our daily affairs equipped with a shovel and our own roll of toilet paper.

     

    Eta:  Okay, never mind the shovel.  That smacks of government regulation.

  37. 37.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Jay: that’s crazy! I hope it’s safe to say something here. In what way is it NOT genocide?
    and, um, “freedom of speech.?”

    I should write to my friend in Israel and ask how she’s feeling during all this.

  40. 40.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @SpaceUnit: no really, thx. I’m used to Facebook, where people reply and you get notifications. Still getting used to it here. Sometimes one speaks into the wind and assumes one may have been read silently by lurkers, or not seen at all. Tonight was a big exception, on the other thread.

    speaking of Colorado, there was a massive protest, free Palestine, on Colfax by east high Saturday, I was adjacent at the farmer’s  market. The crowd was roaring. Lots of call and response. Then people leaving, walking by the market, wearing kaffiyehs, carrying flags. Was there reporting on it? I don’t get local news. It sounded and felt positive.

    so many Colorado one could almost have a meetup. If one had the free time..

  41. 41.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @NotMax: TODDLER

    but I work w 3s and 4 s.  It’s clear they didn’t manage him with much success when he went to preschool. To the detriment of so many people…

  42. 42.

    wjca

    @sdhays: His support is softening when he needs his sometimes voters to be feeling more pumped about voting for him.

    On balance, I suspect that the ideal is for those “sometimes” supporters to just stay home.  Rather than show up, skip the top contest, and then reflexively vote R all down the rest of the ballot. In a couple of places, that couple of percentage points could be important in down ballot races.

  43. 43.

    eclare

    @Gloria DryGarden:

    It takes a while to pick up on the internet traditions here, but it’s worth it.  I’ve been here about twelve years, I think.  Welcome!

    And yes, sometimes comments get a response, sometimes they don’t.  Que sera, sera.  You get used to it.

  44. 44.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @SpaceUnit: we can’t dig a hole 6” deep in Colorado! Have you tried, up in the mountains? Can’t be done. Maybe with a mattock. And tp, you need to carry it back out, a special plastic bag, or use leaves or something.
    live missed the  angle of your joking, and gone all practical on it.
    Just saying

  46. 46.

    SpaceUnit

    @Gloria DryGarden:

    I’m not aware of it.  Until now the only major local Gaza War protests were at the Auraria Campus.

     

    ETA:  It’s only the noobs that carry TP into the backcountry.  Experienced hikers use a squirrel.

  47. 47.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @SpaceUnit: people looked happy, walking away after. I didn’t go see if they blocked off colfax for them..like it was a pep rally.

  48. 48.

    West of the Rockies

    @SpaceUnit:

    I don’t know how people cannot be utterly and morbidly bored by Trump, the incessant whining,  accordion hands, 9 years of red ties and white golf shirts, and every other fucking thing about him.

  50. 50.

    Jay

    @Gloria DryGarden:

    While 6′ is needed in drained soil/gravel for an out house,

    only a 6″ hole into “active” soil is needed according to “How to Poop in the Woods”, and a garden trowel will work.

    So Urban landscaping, a neighbors front yard, etc will work, as long as it is only rugged Libertarian non socialists are doing it. Not the unwashed masses.

    Btw, as long as the fire hazard is low, you are supposed to burn the TP before filling the hole in.

    Rock climbing and mountaineering have different ground rules.

  53. 53.

    wjca

    @SpaceUnit: It’s only the noobs that carry TP into the backcountry.  Experienced hikers use a squirrel.

    Why hassle the wildlife? As I recall, the standard is 3 leaves.  Or 3 stones, depending of the local ecology. ;-)

    For those who missed the turn, that’s from the Koran….

  58. 58.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Jay: 6” is about as deep as I can get in my clay, when I used to double dig. In the city. But in the mountains, the soil is so rocky, 6” is not readily doable. Certainly not w a trowel. One makes do, in the dispersed camping and outback, and along the trails. One knows 6” is required, but one does what one has to do.

  59. 59.

    SFAW

    @wjca:

    After seeing two local squirrels stealing a lot of food from our bird feeders, I’d be OK with using them as TP.

  63. 63.

    wjca

    @Gloria DryGarden: sticks. Very handy.

    Weeeeelllll, maybe.  If very bendy sticks.  But definitely not my first choice.  (Unless the alternative is pinecones.  And maybe not even then.)

  65. 65.

    West of the Rockies

    @Manyakitty:

    Some idiot woman must have told him he looked good in shirt sleeves.  I wish he’d catch that ubiquitous yellow tie in a wringer washer… oh, what a tragedy that would be. //

  67. 67.

    Maxim

    @eclare: I answered your question in the previous thread, but it was already dead. I’m in southern California, and most of my family is also in California, so leaving is a difficult prospect.

  68. 68.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @wjca: when I backpacked in canyon lands, they said we had to pack all trash out. Since I sure didn’t want to carry a baggie w that trash in it, I experimented.
    Stones yes. Sticks, bark worn off, smooth ones only, you develop a technique.
    you guys have cracked me up w the pine cones, although I suppose, if it’s not opened yet… but too small, really.

    at one point I asked a ranger, who I regularly discussed plant identification with, about the 6” hole. His answer was fascinating. Maybe for another night.

    Need to get out more.

  70. 70.

    eclare

    Hehehe…Kimmel played the clip of Kyle Clark not questioning the CO Rep candidate about his DUI while repeating pretty much every detail of his DUI.  TaMara posted it earlier, I think.

  72. 72.

    eclare

    @Maxim:

    Gotcha.  I just wondered where it was so hot.  And I get that about family, I happen to like Memphis, but if I didn’t have family here, I would not have come.

  73. 73.

    Jay

    @Gloria DryGarden:

    w the pine cones, although I suppose, if it’s not opened yet

    The open ones have more “absorbency”, are less likely to slip in your hands, have a scraping effect, and one Ponderosa pine cone will have you covered, no matter what.

  74. 74.

    Chet Murthy

    @Jay: Oof, you guys!  I don’t know how you stand it!  I’m the opposite of Pete Hegseth!  I feel all dirty after a poo, regardless of how much TP I use up.  Guess it’s a good thing I never got into camping!

  77. 77.

    frosty

    @wjca: I’m coming to think that a quirky sense of humor is a survival requirement at BJ.

    Are you new here? It’s the defining characteristic!

    ETA: A comment response as Visual instead of Text!!! My day is complete.

  79. 79.

    SectionH

    @NotMax: Not your island, but I rather like the Advertiser spamming me for this kinda news. Dicey at all fuck to me, but what do I know? . Still, compared to most mainland papers’ headlines, the *Advertiser is really pretty good.

  80. 80.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Chet Murthy: my secret, is, once I finished w my sticks or stones, I was allowed one baby wipe per day, on those backpacking trips. Life changing, to have that one luxury. Because, yeah, feeling clean is nice, too.

  82. 82.

    Jay

    @Chet Murthy:

    One ponderosa pinecone is about the same as a half “double roll” of TP, just make sure you break off all the spikey bits at the ends of the petals that are an evolutionary adaptation to keep birds and squirrels from eating the seeds inside.

    BTW, having worked retail through covid, I am still upset about how y’all handled the toilet paper/bleach/lysol thing when y’all had houseplants, yards and gardens.

  83. 83.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Jay: I’ll have to experiment sometime.

    The open ones have more “absorbency”, are less likely to slip in your hands, have a scraping effect, and one Ponderosa pine cone will have you covered, no matter what.

    not slipping in the hands is good.  There’s a ponderosa across the street, I’ll have to examine a cone, and consider.

  84. 84.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Maxim: I wrote a piano story on the last thread, late. You’ll like it. Sorry your brother had to sell yours, and didn’t think to borrow money from family, or somehow keep it.

  86. 86.

    JaySinWA

    @Jay: Answering the age-old question, do Canadians poop in the woods? Asked along with are bears Catholic?

  90. 90.

    Chet Murthy

    @John S.: I worked at a company that had a bunch of Toto Washlets in their bathrooms.  Damn, that was some fine, fine amenities.

  91. 91.

    JaySinWA

    @Gloria DryGarden: Hey if it was good enough for Bonanza It should be good enough for any red blooded pooper

    ETA

    Scrape, scrape, scrape.
    Scrape your groove thing

    I don’t have time for that shit

    If you don’t have the time, don’t do the pine.

  92. 92.

    frosty

    @Jay: My favorite COVID story: My older son was down to his last roll of TP. My younger son who was a stocker in a grocery pulled a case off the truck (paid for it) and shipped it to his brother. Without telling him. Big surprise when he saw it sitting on his front steps!!

    Ya gotta know somebody!

  93. 93.

    Jay

    @frosty:

    I used to text people, when we had stock, we as staff wern’t allowed to touch it, pre-buy it, etc.

    We had to deal with 5 people and an Associate getting stabbed over the last 6 packages of TP in the isle, one time, when it was 1 per customer.

    I saw things.

    Had to deal with things.

    One day, every Public stall had the toilet paper dispensers smashed open and the cheapest single ply TP in the world, in a 2 foot roll, stolen

    I used to bring my own pinecones to work.

    Pro tip, don’t flush them. Flushing is only for the packaging that customers have stolen the contents out of.

  96. 96.

    NotMax

    @SectionH

    That whole light rail project on Oahu has been a royal fustercluck since day one, whose fustecluckiness grows like Topsy with each passing year.

  100. 100.

    WereBear

    @Sister Golden Bear: This seems much more promising than steroids, the old treatment. A gentler way to calm down inflammation?

    Might be worth checking your CRP to see if anything else is happening and maybe needing treatment. I am also an “interesting patient” but I have had great doctors along the way, so it sounds like you have that advantage, too. (Atypical all the way, that’s me!)

    If anyone suggests an anti-inflammatory diet, be aware that you need the real, medical one: ketosis. Not the lies made from ChatGPT that pours out over the internet.

  101. 101.

    TBone

    @BlueGuitarist: she’s absolutely horrendous (she’s from Florida!) and she is my rep.  We’re outnumbered here, but we have a strong Dem presence.  Campaign office on the main drag in town. and I’ll certainly do my part to support all of our Dems, especially her challenger.

    @BlueGuitarist: I really enjoyed that.  I’m sorry she even had to see that fucking guy, but her response was right and proper.  If it were me, I’d need bail money today.

  102. 102.

    WereBear

    @Jay:

    We had to deal with 5 people and an Associate getting stabbed over the last 6 packages of TP in the isle, one time, when it was 1 per customer.

    I saw things.

     
    I’ve seen medical memoirs come of out the Pandemic, but there should be retail ones :)

  104. 104.

    Tony Jay

    I don’t see the problem.

    The rules of all political systems are devised by their operators. All that’s happened here is that the Republican Party have decided to rewrite the rules to allow their operators to lie, cheat, gaslight, rape, bribe, corrupt and basically vermin their way through any and every situation, while Democrats don’t get to complain about it.

    Those are the rules, people.  If Democrats didn’t like them they should have raised objections at the proper time instead of trying to burn everything down now just because things have got too spicy for Oldtimey Joe.

  106. 106.

    WereBear

    I do see signs that Dark Brandom will RISE — perhaps not in rigged polls, but certainly in the hearts of his country.

    I hope that what we are currently dealing with is the beginning of the end. Because where can they go that’s any lower except death threats and the fear they will follow through.

    But if they wanted to rise, they would. Now the rot has infested the whole party, and it will SPLIT. They won’t be able to stand each other despite mutual enemies now. Because of the Convicted Felon doing what he always does, if they had the wit to read up on ANYTHING.

    I moved to NY in the early 80’s (it was a good time to do so!) and one of the first things I learned was, “We are ashamed of him, don’t believe a word he says.”

    Republicans really should get out more. Like OUT of their cult which is trying to co-opt political identity, and this seems to sort out the more sensibly religious and law-abiding from them.

    A gulf they don’t even want to bridge in their megalomania, but a fine off-ramp for those who can’t say it until someone else does. More people are saying it, and when it goes it will be an avalanche.

  108. 108.

    Baud

    MSNBC is talking about Biden’s age again because he won’t give more media interviews.

    Insert egfoldman response here

  109. 109.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Liminal Owl: ​
     

    That happened two or three days ago, but I haven’t gotten tired of looking at the pic of that trashed bus.

  111. 111.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Baud: ​
     

    Their problem is he won’t say “how high?” when they tell him to jump.

    Not that they’d ever even dream of applying a remotely similar standard to Trump. Those GOPers, they just do what they do, and what can you do about it, amirite? So they can say and do anything, and it slides right under the radar, no matter how horrific it is.

    Our worthless media.

  112. 112.

    NotMax

    “Complete and total” Dolt 45 endorsed candidate in NJ Republican primary lost by … 25 points.

    “So much non-winning.”

  113. 113.

    MagdaInBlack

    @Baud: I suspect this means we can look forward to more Biden interviews on non-mainstream media. I hope I hope 😉

  118. 118.

    rikyrah

    @eclare:

    I don’t know if you saw my comment, but I watched the video of the soldiers returning to France for the D-Day anniversary.  It was very moving.

     

    Been watching them on TikTok. Indeed, very moving

Comments are closed.